


'Oh, leave it all behind and there is happiness'

by Odd_birds_and_booksellers



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M, jolex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:35:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28019355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odd_birds_and_booksellers/pseuds/Odd_birds_and_booksellers
Summary: A collection of moments where Jo begins to heal and pick up the pieces of her broken heart.
Relationships: Alex Karev & Jo Wilson Karev, Alex Karev/Jo Wilson Karev
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	'Oh, leave it all behind and there is happiness'

**Author's Note:**

> I wished Greys would've shown more of Jo healing, and slowly getting back up again rather than having her just push through and sleep with Jackson in what would've been the same season she married Alex. 
> 
> Anyway, I've obviously been in an Evermore breakdown all day so I was meant to finish my festive fic, which I promise to post tomorrow because I got too distracted writing this. 
> 
> And yes the timeline is off because the show in which Mer has covid is set in April and I have set it a year from Alex leaving so just roll with it because fanfiction.   
> Thanks for reading.

**_And in the disbelief, I can't face reinvention_ **   
**_I haven't met the new me yet_ **

“What are you doing here all alone?” Meredith finds her alone in the attending lounge curled up on the sofa staring out into the cold night, the only light coming from a small lamp in the corner of the room. “Jo?” She steps a little closer, wary of the distance they've been ordered to maintain. 

“Just thinking…” Her voice croaks and Meredith can tell she’d been crying as she makes no attempt to face her. “Did you know a year ago today was your trail? I haven’t seen him in a year.” Meredith closed her eyes, no she hadn’t realised the date, work had been so busy for them all that she barely knew where one day began and the last ended. “I’ve lived a whole year without him.”

She hears Jo’s voice crack slightly, and she curses the space between them, how can you comfort someone from six feet away. How can you comfort someone that's lost what she has?

“Jo…”

“No it’s okay, I’m okay really I just miss him a little more today.” She shakes her head, finally turning to face Meredith as she wipes away the trail of tears falling down her cheeks. “Have you spoken to him recently?” She asks, forcing a slight smile onto her face as she straightens out her scrub top. 

“Not really...there's never really a good time to talk but he’s okay he’s sent a few pictures of his kids.” Merediths voice trails off as she watches Jo visibly flinch at the mention of his newfound family. “You could call him? If you wanted I mean.” She's not sure why she suggests that knowing it wasn't something either one of them could stomach and the cold look in Jo’s eyes combined the way she shivers at the mere mention of speaking to Alex lets her know that.

“No...no I have to let him go if I wanna move forward with my life.” Jo shakes her head, pulling her phone from her pocket to check whatever missed messages she’d received since she’d wandered in here a little over an hour ago. “You should go, you've got the kids waiting on you.”

“I can stay.” Meredith offers, she can’t see the kids anyway, she's not sure if its harder for them or her to see her through the window, to be so close yet so far, so she doesn't mind staying, she just doesn't want Jo to fall deeper into the darkness again, she’d made a promise to him that she intended to keep. 

“No, I’m serious Mer. I’m all good I just wanna miss him for a little while longer, I don’t wanna pretend nothing is hurting, I don’t wanna act like he doesn’t even exist. I just want a moment to miss him and then I’ll get back up.”

Jo smiles again it seems more genuine this time, she’s not breaking, she's just holding on and letting go. It's not an anniversary she'd ever expected but one year without him felt like a turning page for her. 

“Okay.” 

**_There'll be happiness after you_ **   
**_But there was happiness because of you_ **   
**_Both of these things can be true_ **   
**_There is happiness_ **

She schedules her appointments around Levi’s work schedule knowing the loft wasn’t big enough for him not to hear her therapy sessions. She wasn’t a huge fan of doing them over skype, it somehow felt less personal, made her feel more alone but she understood the current need, plus she had the advantage of being able to curl up in her bed for the rest of the day when she didn’t have work to distract her from the world that was burning down around her. 

“You know when I was in the care while I was growing up there was this book, I think I was about four when I found it and it was old and tattered, it had this faded teal cover but I loved it and the care worker let me keep it. I took it from home to home with me until I was about 12 and then I lost it somewhere.” She whispers, staring down at the frayed blanket in her lap, continuing to pull at the loose threads, watching them unravel before her eyes. She’s not sure what brought up the memory, all she knows is she woke up this morning thinking of the old tale she used to favour so much. “It was called The Lady or the Tiger, have you read it?”

Carly just shakes her pixelated head her voice crackling through the screen. “No...what's it about?” 

“There's this princess who falls madly in love with the guard, and when the king finds out, he has the guard thrown into an arena with two doors. Behind one door, there's a tiger who'll rip him apart. Behind the other door is a beautiful lady he can spend the rest of his life with, you know marry and have a family with and live happily ever after.” Jo gulps, snapping a piece of thread from the blanket as she looks up at the screen. “Anyway the princess is forced to choose his fate.”

“What does she pick?”

Jo shrugs letting out a deep sigh as she catches sight of the boxes by her feet. “I don’t know the author never tells you.”

“What do you think she picked?”

“When I was younger, I thought the princess chose the tiger because who wants to see the love of their life spend their life with another woman? Honestly, it's too cruel.” She could never understand it when she was young, maybe it stemmed from never understanding how her mother could walk away so easily but it always confused Jo how you could love someone and be without them, how you could go on loving them and living without them. When she was young when love seemed like a distant fairytale she imagined she’d rather die than know it is out there and not have it. “I used to think their love was so strong and that if it was a one in kind love then surely it was her or no one else.”

“Do you still think that now?”

Jo shakes her head, throwing the blanket to the ground beside her, sitting upright on the sofa as she eyes the packed up boxes in the corner. “Now I like to think the princess chose the lady.”

“How come?”

“Because I’m starting to think that love may mean wanting the other person to be happy, even if that means they can't be with you.”

“And is that how you feel about Alex?”

Jo nods, looking down at the empty space where his ring once lay, her fingers already fiddling with the empty space. “I don’t regret a single second with Alex. I’d do it all again if I could...I wish I could do it all again.” She lets out a dry laugh, her fingers ghosting across her lips like she's trying to capture the way she smiles at the thought of him, the feeling now foreign to her. 

“I can’t make him want me the only thing I can do is love him and let him go by doing so.”

**Haunted by the look in my eyes**   
**That would've loved you for a lifetime**   
**Leave it all behind**   
**And there is happiness**

“I dunno how you do it...I dunno how you get up.” Jo’s exhausted when she finally gets off shift two days later than planned, what she really wants to do is pull the curtains shut and forget that the world is falling to shit around her and sleep the rest of the year away. Instead, she arrives home to find Levi curled up on the couch, an opened beer bottle in his hand as he flicked through photos of Nico on his phone. “I don’t know how anyone gets up because love sucks and it hurts, it all just hurts I don’t know people love anyone.” He blubbers knocking into the table he throws his arms out.

Jo sighs dropping her bag down, they had different ways of breaking down, clearly, Levi had a flare for that dramatics and usually, she’d suck it up and go along with it, call Nico trash and watch the first rom-com they could find but today she was tired. 

“Love doesn't suck…” She drops down next to him, taking the open bottle from his hands. “I think loving someone might just be the best thing you can ever do...even if it ends.” 

She watches as Levi recoils surprised by her change of tune. That was probably the most positive thing she said about love and relationships in weeks, but watching the world fall apart around her, being the only person allowed to hold a patients hand as they died was tough. Jo had heard more last words in the last week then she had in all her time as a doctor and honestly it took a toll on her but it also put everything in perspective. A couple of weeks ago only Jo’s world was falling apart and now everyone’s was. 

“It’s risking everything you got for one of their smiles that’s love.” A quiet smile graces her face as she pictures Alex’s smiling face, it still fills her with warmth before she remembers she won’t see it again and her world turns back to black and white. “If you’re not all in, then you’re not in it.”

Jo lets herself settle against the sofa, taking a sip from the cold beer bottle as she leans back letting go of another piece of him as she breathes deep, getting closer to the light at the end of the tunnel as she finds herself remembering the good times, the laughter and the joy and not cursing his name. 

“Alex is happy he’s really really happy, it hurts like hell that it wasn’t with me it does.” She leans forward meeting Levi’s eye, he's red-rimmed and puffy and for a moment she wants to be back there, she wants to love someone so wholeheartedly again that you can't imagine a world without them. 

A part of her will always love Alex, he will always hold a piece of her heart but it’s all changed now...the love they shared isn't gone but it's not the same anymore. 

“But for a while, I thought he was dead. I thought he was lying on the side of a road somewhere…and now I get to wake up and know that he’s okay, that he’s better than okay he has everything he’s ever wanted and he’s loved and I think he deserves that.”

Levi nods settling in beside her, wiping his face with the sleeve of his jumper as he takes a few shaky breaths calming himself. “So you’re not mad?”

“I was for a while but I got eight years with someone I really loved and that loved me.” 

For a while, after he’d left she’d felt worthless, not good enough for him or for anyone but the more time goes by the more she knows that isn’t the truth. 

“I don’t think because we’re over our love means anything less, I know Alex loved me because he showed me, I know what it feels like to be loved for exactly who you are and I never had that before him.”

Jo grabs the remote from the coffee table, pulling the blanket out from underneath her and wrapping it over the both of them as she flicks through Netflix. 

“So I’ll take eight years over none any day. There’s a lot of people alone out there right now...lots of people dying alone with nothing but their memories, I don’t wanna look back at what we had and be mad. I’ve been there, all alone with no one to love so when I think of all the years I've had being loved by Alex I feel kinda sorry for people that never experienced it.”

She looks over at Levi who had calmed beside her, he was nodding as he took in every word she said. “It always feels like there’s one person to love until someone else comes along and then you don’t even know what you were worried about in the first place.”

She’s not sure she really believes it, not yet anyway. Right now she can’t see herself falling in love again and yet logically she knows she probably will. It’s a thought she can’t stomach at the moment but the words fall from her mouth as she believes them as she tries to offer Levi comfort. “Right now it feels like the world is ending, but it’s not, it’s gonna keep spinning and all you can do is put one foot in front of the other…I never saw Alex coming, I never planned to fall in love with him, I have no idea what comes next but I know I’m willing to give it a try.”

**_I can't make it go away by making you a villain_ **   
**_I guess it's the price I paid for seven years in Heaven_ **

“Are you married? Do you have kids?” The father asks looking back at the doctors as he brushes his son's hair back. He’s still asleep from surgery, the drugs yet to have worn off. 

Jo swallows deeply ignoring the way Links eyes burn into the side of her as she shakes her head. “No…and no.”

She mutters something about the surgery and promises to return later as she backs out of the room Link hot on her tail. She can feel a lump forming in her throat as a wave of pain she thought she'd left behind washes over her. 

“I’m sorry that…” 

She interrupts him as the head over to the nurse's station. “No...no it’s okay.”

She tries to blink back the tears that are forming, clutching a hand to her chest like she can feel the bandaids she'd wrapped her heart in falling away as she finds herself overwhelmed with emotion as she glances back at the father and son. “I’ll admit a year ago I was sort of thinking I’d have a baby by now, maybe me and Alex would’ve bought a new house and...yeah it kinda hurt.”

She lets out a dry laugh because the more she says the more she realised yeah she was still hurting. She had wanted that, she really had, she was aware she was nowhere near ready for it now, her heart still too fragile but she wanted it. Maybe she’d imagined little faces with Alex’s eyes and crooked smile before but those dreams had faded quicker then they’d appeared months ago. 

“But it hurts a little less then it did yesterday so that’s good...it will happen for me one day just not today.”

Link nods and she watches as he goes to wrap his arm around her before hesitating, even with frequent testing no one was really sure where they stood anymore. “Yeah, of course it will...until then you can FaceTime your favourite nephew and as soon as we get regular testing you can steal all the snuggles you want. I’m gonna call him right, now if you wanna join?” He points to the phone in his hands as he nods down the hallway. 

“No no I’m good you go ahead.” Jo shakes her head, it was his moment and if she was honest she really didn’t wanna be smiling Aunt Jo right now but she catches the way Links eyes drop, regret spreading across his face. “It’s okay...I’m not falling apart I’m okay.”

“He’s a dad I know that sounds stupid but he’s the first person that ever really loved me, that took care of me and he’s a dad,” Jo whispers her eyes watering because she’d never said it out loud, she read the words on paper but she’d been so consumed with her pain she’d never really processed what they meant. “I bet he’s amazing at it you know…” he voice wobbles a little as a single tear escapes, looking back through the window at the little family. 

“I’m okay.”

“You’re crying.” Link deadpans flashing her sympathetic smile. 

Jo just laughs, shaking her head as brushes past him deciding a visit to Luna in the NICU will be what she needs. “Happy tears I promise.” 

**_No one teaches you what to do_ **   
**_When a good man hurts you_ **   
**_And you know you hurt him, too_ **

“It’s hard to get you out of here lately…” Bailey's voice shakes her from her drowsy state as she lifts her head up, momentarily forgetting about the mask around her head as she turns to find her in the doorway. 

“I used to say that Alex,” Jo mumbles looking back down at Luna, rubbing her tiny hand carefully. She’d spent so much time up here in this room over the years. She hears Bailey's sharp intake of breath as she approaches her and Luna, pulling a seat to sit beside her. “Don’t pull that face. I can mention him without breaking.” 

Jo rolls her eyes as Bailey gives her a knowing look, settling in beside her as her gaze falls to Luna. She was a fighter. “You know when I couldn’t find him when he’d stop answering his phone or his pager he could always be found up here...talking softly to all the babies.” Jo smiles and Bailey murmurs something about that sounding like Karev the puppy dog. “He didn’t think it was fair they spent their first nights of life curled up on their own.”

Jo couldn’t count the number of times she’d stood in the doorway just watching him gruffly sing a couple of lullabies. “He was very good at what he did and sometimes I forget that he was my teacher, that he taught me a lot especially when it came to being up here in the NICU.”

When she closes her eyes she can still him standing there, one tiny baby pressed to his chest as he sways softly. “It’s nice to think that he’s out there still saving lives, holding tiny little hands and promising them it will all be okay…”

She lets go of another piece of him when Bailey tells her to go home and rest, she leaves a part of their love story behind in the NICU, back where it had started. Where so many lives begin, where so many battles are won, she lays down the last piece she's prepared to part with. 

“Because everything is okay in the end, in the end, there is happiness.”

_**All you want from me now is the green light of forgiveness** _   
_**You haven't met the new me yet** _   
_**And I think she'll give you that** _


End file.
